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SPEEC H 




OP 



Hob. G. a. ELDRIDGE, of Wisconsin, 

' • ,' IN THE 

House of Eepresentatives, March 28, 1868, 

AGAINST THE 

BILL MAKING A CONSTITUTION FOR ALABAMA AND ENFORC- 
ING UPON HER PEOPLE NEGRO GOVERNMENT. 



1 

Mr. ELDRIDGE. Mr. Speaker, I have been taught to believe that our system of 
Government, State and National, embodied the perfection of all the models. I have 
supposed it so formed that it was safe from the assaults of Radical innovation, and not 
subject to change or alteration from within, except in the manner provided la the Con- 
stitution. With such opinions, I cannot view the constant assaults upon its several 
Departments, supposed to have been its chief perfection, but with sadness and alarm. 
These Departments, intended to work in harmony, operating only as proper checks 
and balances upon each other, cannot long continue in open and hostile antagonism 
without fatal consequences. And yet, what do we behold ? The Executive power is 
assailed, trenched upon, hedged about, and circumscribed till its influence is scarcely 
perceptible, and its chief officer finally is sought to be deposed and removed because he 
will not altogether abdicate and surrender the office and power to a partisan Congress. 
The judiciary, too, that last refuge of patriotic hope, that supposed conservator of 
popular liberty when all others should fail, is in menace. It is not only menaced, but 
its prerogatives, powers, and jurisdiction are assailed with a frenzied zeal and partisan 
hate that admit of no room for doubt oT the result. It is no longer to be the independ- 
ent, peaceful, pure, and impartial arbiter of our disputes and controversies ; but the 
fiat has gone forth from a Partisan Legislature that the judges of the highest Court of 
the land must soil the ermine in doing its bidding, or surrender the judicial power. 
The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Scuenck] boastingly proclaimed on this floor only the 
other day that the purpose was to *' clip its power" in every possible way. And thus 
it is that, one by one, the very bulwarks of liberty are being thrown down, and all the 
safeguards of the people's rights destroyed. These measures, I repeat, fill me with 
apprehension and alarm. With the President deposed, the prerogatives and jurisdic- 
tion of the Supreme Court taken away, a partisan Congress will riot in power unre- 
strained. With the sword and the purse at its command, who so foolhardy as to believe 
our liberties safe ? Look at the War Department, barricaded and picketed with armed 
soldiers in time of profound peace, and in the capital of the Republic. 

And, sir, I cannot forget the most significant fact, that only a few days ago an 
attempt was made, probably at the suggestion of the usurping Secretary of War, to smug- 
gle through the House in an appropriation bill a provision for the removal of the ]>i>sent 
Capitol police, and authorizing the Secretary of War to detail non-commissioned officers 






.F3- 



and soldiers to take charge of the Capitol building and grounds. Had this not been 
discovered, and the provision had become a law. we should be sitting to-day and 
legislating under the gleam of the sword, and the Supreme (!ourt rt^ndering its decisions 
at the point of the bayonet. Verily, coming events are casting their t^hadows before. 
i\re these things to familiarize our eyes to what is in waiting for us f Are they the 
advance pickets of the army with which Congress, if permitt'id to pursue unrestrained 
its purpose, will control the destinies of the people, and by which it will enforce its 
edicts ; by which it will make and unmake States ; make and unmake Presidents ; 
make and unmake the Courts, and force them all to do its bidding ? Is this the power, 
the policy, that is to control u-? ? 

Mr. Speaker, I desire to enter my protest against this bill and to relieve myself of 
all responsibility for its passage. Never, in my judgment, was there a more inexcusa- 
ble or unjustifiable measure. It has no warrant in the Federal Constitution, and no 
justification or precedent in the practice of this Govemmt-nt, unless, indeed, it be in 
the kindred measures of so called reconstruction. It is in clear and unmistakable 
violation of all the underlying fundamental principles of the Republic. 

Sir, if there be one idea upon which this Government was formed more essential 
and fundamental than any other, that idea is, that the people of the United States are 
sovereign, and entitled by nature to the right of self-government. This principle un- 
derlies all our institutions, and is co-extensive with the utmost boundaries of the 
United States and its authority. The source of all power is the people, and their 
only grant or authority to the Federal Government is the Constitution. If the power 
is not there found, it does not exist. Under the Constitution, there are, and there can 
be, no conquered, tributary, or subject States. Equality of citizenship and the right 
of self-government have never been granted or surrendered by the people or States of 
the Republic. To do this would be voluntary submission to the chains and manacles 
of slavery. The right of self-government constitutes the liberty and freedom of the 
citizen. Without the enjoyment, of this right no man can be styled free ; no man can 
enjoy the liberty intended to be secured by the Federal Constitution. It is the dearest, 
the most essential right of American citizenship. It cannot be taken away without 
totally subverting the Constitution, and destroying our system of Government 
altogether. 

Sir, upon what provision of the Constitution can this bill rest ? To what do its 
friends appeal for their justification in its support ? I do not make this inquiry with 
reference to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Stevens.] ' He is consistent and 
logical; he has never stultified" himstSlf by any pretended constitutional sanction. He 
proclaims all the reconstruction measures of Congress "outside" the Constitution. 
But to these who admit tlie obligation and duty of obedience to the fundamental law 
of the land, I ask them, in all sincerity and honesty, under which of its provisions, or 
by what right, do they justify their action upon this bill ? 

Article four, section three, provides that — 

Ntw Sl«tes may be admitted by the Congress into the Union; but no new State shall be formed or 
erected within the jurisdiction of any otlier State; nor any State be formed by the junction of two or 
more States or parts of States without the consent of the LtKislatares of thi States concerned, as well as 
of the Congress. 

The State of Alabama is certainly not a new State ; it is not a State formed by the 
junction of two or more States or parts -of States ; it is not a new State formed witliin 
the jurisdiction of another State. And, if it were a new State so formed and erected, 
there is no consent of the Lsgislature of the State concerned. There is, then, no au- 
thority for this bill in this section, and it is the only provision of the Constitution re- 
lating to the admist^ion of States into the Union. 



But if it be said that the purpose of this bill and the measures of Congress pre- 
cedino- it are only to reorganize government in the State of Alabama and not to admit 
the State, as a new State, the inquiry is still pertinent. Where does Congress get the 
authority ? I have looked in vain to find any authority for this even. I can find no 
authority in the Constitution for any interference by Congress in the orgauization or 
reor<Tanization of a government by the people of an existing State of the Union. The 
right to form and reform, to organize and reorganize governments is, under our system, 
a right original and inherent in the people. It is only the exercise of the right of 
self-government — ^the original right upon which all our State and National Grovern- 
ments are founded. The right to form and establish governments does not come from 
Congress ; it is not a constitutional grant. It is one of the rights never delegated, 
never parted with by the people. It was derived from a source higher than Congress- 
es or Parliaments. It is the right, the power to make and unmake both. All the 
"just powers of government are by the consent of the governed." 

If the right of the people to govern themselves be usurped or surrendered, to that 
extent the people are enslaved. They cannot part with it or allow it to be taken from 
them and be free. The people must either govern themselves or be governed by others. 
They must make their own constitutions and laws, or submit to constitutions and laws 
made for them. The right given up, conceded to others, to make the laws, the kind aad 
quality of the laws depend upon the will of the makers, and the people are at their 
mercy. They are no longer free. 

Sir, these views are too elementary to admit of argument. The principles stated lie 
at the very foundation of the Republic. They were most clearly annunciated in the 
Declaration of Independence, and are imbedded in all our State and Federal Constitu- 
tions. They are the foundation ideas of all free government. They are the princi- 
ples upon which alone our system of government can be maintained. They are the 
only principles upon which any free government can be maintained. 

Now, what does this bill propose ? I will not here stop to argue the question of 
whether Alabama is a State — whether it is out of the Union. That it is a State, and 
a State in the Union, I have several times shown in this House, to my own satisfaction 
at least, and by arguments and facts that cannot be refuted, denied, or answered. It 
is an existing State in the Union, or the liistory of the last five years is a lie. It is a 
State in the Union, or the war for the preservation of the Union, and the vast expendi- 
ture of life and treasure in its name and on its behalf, is a monstrous crime. It is an 
existing State, or all the professions and promises of the party controling the Govern- 
ment during these long and bloody years, by which so many brave men were induced 
to offer their lives a sacrifice on the battle field, and so many homes and hearts made 
desolate, were stupendous frauds and cheats. It is, and has been, a State saved and 
preserved to the Union by the gigantic struggle through which we have passed, or the 
party now in power has been all the tim«, from the beginning of the war till this day, 
in bold, wicked, criminal conspiracy with the rebels and secessionists, aiding them in 
accomplishing, and now finally consummating, what they could not alone accomplish — 
the division and final dismemberment of this Union. Alabama is not out of the Union, 
is not destroyed as a State, or every man who fought, aided, encouraged, or coun- 
tenanced the war, with any consciousness of what was to be the result, whether in the 
North or the South, whether ou the one side or the other, is a conscious traitor to this 
Union of States, and an enemy of the Republic of States. 

But, I repeat, the State of Alabama is not destroyed. It still exi.«ts in the Union, 
This last bill admits that it is a State in the Union. The first bill provided for the 
admission of the State and for its repi-esent.ition ; this, last only for its admission to 
representation. 



And now, if it is to be turned out or excluded from the Union, or dealt with in any 
other manner than as a State in the Union, it will be the work of this Congress alou*^. 
All the other enemies of this once proud and noble State; all those who would hive 
taken her from the Union by war or force ; all those who would have incorporated her 
in another confederacy of States, surrendered and abandoned the conspiracy for her 
dismemberment. It is Congress alone that would now exclude her from or degrade her 
in tlie Union. It is Congress that has made aud would humiliate her to accept this 
constitution. Aud this is to be done by this bill. By this bill and the previous acts 
of Congress her nine hundred and sixty-four thousand two hundred and on*- population 
are to be made slaves, are to have forced upon them a government in which they have 
in reality, as a people, had no part in creating ; a government obnoxious to all their 
tastes, hateful and odious to them. The constitution made by themselves, anri under 
which the State came into the Union, and which the rebellion in vain strove to over- 
throw and destroy, is to be taken from them by this Congress, by this bill, and a con- 
stitution in which the vast majority feel no interest, and by which their dearest rights 
are taken away, is to be forced upon thrjm. 

The educated, the intelligent, the cultivated, the refined, the experienced, are to be 
excluded from all part or s-hare in the government of the State, and all their interests 
aud rights of life, liberty, and property are to be given into the hau'ls and keeping 
of an ignorant, debased, uneducated, uncivilized, servile minority. And.all this is to 
be done, not in violation of the Federal Constitution only, but in most flagrant viola- 
tion and disregard of the very act of Congress under which and by virtue of which 
this bill is justified. 

And, according to the preamble of this bill, this monstrous measure is denominated, 
is to be taken and considered, the voluntary act of the people of Alabama ! Seventy 
thousand, all except one thousand of which are negroes, are ;ill who are claimed or 
pretended to have approved or to be in favor of the constitution which is thus sought 
to be forced upon this people. And these seventy thousand — sixty-nine thousand 
blacks and about one thousand blacker whites — are denominated, are to be, the gov- 
erning people of Alabama! And this, too, when there stands on the registers made 
by the <riends of the measure, under the direction and authority of Congress, dictated 
and managed by the sword, one httndred thousand more competent and legal voters, 
mo-tly white men, who contemn, loathe, and execrate such constitution and 
government. Add to this thirty thousand or more disfranchised by the despotic enact- 
ments of Congress, and the tyrant agents appointed to administer them, and tell me, 
are not the preamble and all pretenses that this constitution is framed or adopted 
by the people of AlaV>ama a lie ? 

The gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Stevexs,] Chairman of the Committee, and 
who reported the original bill, stated, when he moved to recommit, that there were 
twenty odd thousand majority against the constitution. He said : 

After a full exnmiiiHtion of the final returns from Alabama, which we had not got when this bill was 
drawn, I am satisfiid, for one, that toforceavote on this bill, and admit the Stnte against our own law, 
where there is a mMJority of iwcntj odd thousand against the constitution, would not be doing such justice 
in legislation as will be expected by the peiiple. W itii that view of the chsc, I shall vote for the motion to 
recommit, and on tha: motion I demand the previous question. 

The bill was recommittea. 

That this constitution is not the choice of the people, that it would be an act of in- 
justice to pass the bill, is declared. There is no difference between that bill and this. 
In principle and effect they are the same. They are in violation of the will of the 
majority. They are in violation of that great right of the people to make their own 
fundamental law ; they would place the majority under the control of the minority. 
I agree with what the gentleman said, that tt) pass this bill against our own law, where 
there is a majority of twenty odd thousand against the constitution, would not be doing 
such justice iu legislation as will be expected by the people. 

And yet this monstrous wrong, this outrage upon all the essential principles of the 
Republic, is to be forced, at the point of the bayonet, upon a free people, by the men 
who prate longest and loudest of treedom, libertj', and popular rights, lu this day of 
progress, of advancing civilization; iu the nineteenth cent'iry ; in this " land of the 
free and home of the brave ;" in this Republic, composed of sovereign, co-equal States, 
united by and under the Constitution, the matchless work of Washington, Madison, 
and their noble compeers, one of those States upon which the Federal Union rests, of 
which it is formed, is to be dismantled, robbed of the constitution made by its people, and 
to have forced upon it and its million of inhabitants a constitution of government 
dictated to it by Congress, and approved by only seventy thousand uneducated 
negroes— ignorant, squalid, degraded negroes ! Do the annals of the world present an 



instance of snch stupendous follj, absurdity, and wickedness ? It can be justified hy 
no man not tilled with infernal hatred of our form of government, and desirous of its 
overthrow. It must, it can only end in blood. No man in his senses can expect any- 
'tliin<^ else. The white man, the white race, in the history of the world, has never been 
the servant of the black. The madness or folly of Congress can never compel him to 
submit to African domination or government. >~ 

Sir, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. 6tetens] tells the country, by way, I 
suppose, of reconciling the people to this horrid work, that "we are not now merely 
expounding a Government ; we are building one ; wc are making a nation." And the 
committee reportii^ this bill, in similar language, tell us that we are "building a 
mighty nation." They say: "But while this free pieople are rebuilding a mighty 
nation, in which there must be no taint of despotism or injustice, they have examined 
carefuUv all the provisions of the Constitution, and, as a precedent which they hoj>e 
will never be departed from, but which becomes necessary by the injustice of the sister 
States, they have determined that no State shall ever be admitted into the Union where 
the right to universal suffrage shall not be made permanent and impiossible of viola- 
tion." They have determined — the committee have determined — that no State shall 
ever be admitted into " this mighty nation" where th« right of universal sufJ'rage shall 
not be made permanent. What is to be done with New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, 
Kentucky, and the other States which have not yet made universal suffrage permanent ? 
They are never to be admitted into this new nation till they bow to negro domination. 
"Not expounding a Government," but "making a nation," "rebuilding a mighty 
nation, in which there must be no taint of despotism or injustice !" Was there ever 
supli impudence, such folly, such ab-*ufdity, such treason ? This Reconstruction 
Committee, those who support this bill, members of Congress, not expounding the 
Constitution, not legislating according to its provisions for the Union, but building a 
nation, a "mighty nation." Who commissioned Congress? Where did it get the 
power ? Who can read these bold, unblushing avowals, these foul utterances of treason 
to the Union, that the ptirpose is not to maintain this Republic of States, but to build 
a Government, a mighty nation, in its stead, and not stand aghast at the declaration ! 
But there is to' be " no taint of despotism" in this new, this " mighty nation !" Oh 
no ; there is no despotism iri forcing a constitution upon the people against its will. 
No despotism in forcing half a million white, intelligent, educated, refined men, women, 
and children, to live under the domination of seventy thousand negroes. There is no 
taint of despotism or injustice in forcing the people of a sovereign Stite to surrender 
their constitution of government, and accept one made by negroes. Or, can anything 
on earth be more cruel, arbitrary, unjust, and despotic, than such a government so 
enforced ? 

I am glad this committee and the gentleman from Pennsylvania have had the hardi- 
hood to proclaim their revolutionary purpose. There need be no longer any cavil or 
dispute. They would build a government ; they would make a mighty nation on the 
ruins of the old Union. Let the people of the States that deny universal negro 
suffrage take heed and understand that no State shall ever be admitted into this "mighty 
nation" which this revolutionary party is now making, " where the right of univer- 
sal suffrage shall not be made permanent and impossible of violation." This has 
become " necessary by the injustice of sister States." These are the solemn utter- 
ances of the representatives of a great party— the party that is building a "mighty 
nation." They are the official declarations of members of Congress, of a committee of 
the House of Representatives, while in the very act of violating its declared principles. 
They are the opening up of the revolutionary schemes of the party now controling the 
destinies of the Republic. The grand temple of republican liberty, erected by our 
ancestors with so much care and wisdom, is to be torn down ; the pillars of that majesi- 
tic edifice, resting upon the solid and safe foundation of popular sovereignty and the 
right of self-government, are to be wrenched from their foundations, and a new 
government, " a mighty nation," built in its place ! And this is the war that is now 
being waged against our system of government, against the Constitution and Govern- 
ment of our fathers. Congress is not "expounding" the Constitution under which it 
was created, and exercising the powers granted by it ; but it is usurping the povrer and 
arrogating to itself the right to make a government, to build a nation. The people are 
no longer to be consulted or regarded, no longer to be the architects of the Government 
under which they live. They must submit to the arbitrary hand of power, and bare 
their necks to the yoke prepared by Congress and such agents as it in its majestic wis- 
dom may depute. Congress is to rule the Empire and sway the destinies of the people 
with more thaw regal power. Who will hereafter pretend that ours is a government 
'•deriving all its just powers from the consent of the governed?" It is no longer a 



6 

Government "by the people for the people." It is a Government of the people by 
Congress ; it is the rule of the servant over the master ; it is an utter denial of the 
right of self-government ; it is Federal usurpation ; it is Federal tyranny — Federal 
oppression. 

The gentlemen who led the other side of this House understood this in 1858. How 
energetically and eloquently our worthy Speaker [Mr. Colfax] inveighed against 
Federal interference with the affairs and constitution of Kansas. How ably did he 
argue for the right of self-government — the right of the people to make their own con- 
stitutions, unawed and uninfluenced by Federal power. 

Let me read from his speech on that occasion, and see if it is not applicable to the 
present ; if it does not show that this bill ought not to pass : * 

A constitution is before us. not framed by the authority of an enablinK act, the last Congress having 
failerl to concur in the piissane of one — not ratified b.v tlic ])eoi)l<' interested at hny election in which the 
right to choose, the simple power of saying yes or no. liart been conceded — but framed by a convention, 
elected by an impi^rfect, unfair, disfranchising, and, therefore, swindling census am', registry, whose 
members re])reseiite(i. on an average, exactly tliirty votes apiece; who needed an array to protect them 
while in session from the indignation of the people whose organif law they pretended to have been com- 
missioned to make; who themselves concfdod all that I have charged against them by submitting the 
constitution only to those who were willing to vote for it and to swea', besides, to support it; and whose 
illshapen and il!e..'itimate offspring was 'Cpudiated as spurious by an overwhelming majority of ten 
thousand at a fair open election, authorized by the Governor and Legislature of the Territory. 

Ten thou.'«and wei-e enough to stigmatize the rule as despotic then ; with a majority 
of twenty odd thousand against the constitution to-day, the House proposes to pass 
this bill : 

Artd yet this fraudulent instrument, which no one bene is hardy enough to claim as the voice of the 
majority of the peojde of the projio.'^ed Slate; which no moie speaks tlieir will than does the coustitmion 
of cjnqucred and entliralled Krance speak the will of the freemen of America ; and w.hich every one, 
here or else'<-here, knows full well is loathed and scorned and repudiated by the people who are to be 
forced with the bayonet to live under it — tl.is in.strument is pressed upon us for ratification on the 
teclinicdl ground that it emanated from a body which was nominally a convention representiug the 
pei>])le of Kansas ; that it has jiassed the ordeal of a pretended, one-sided submission, and that we liave, 
therefore, no right to go behind it and inquire whether it is or is not the will of the people of that distant 
Territory. 

The gentleman proceeds in another passage to put the following inquiry : 

Imagine, sir. George Washington sitting in the White House; that noble i)atri<pl, whose whole career is 
a biliiaiii illustration of honor and i)urlty in high places, an. I who do.^bts that if such a coostitut on as 
this had been -uhmitted to him for liis sanction, he would have sjjurned from his door with contempt and 
scorn the messenger who bore it * Or ask yourself what would have been the indigant answer of Thomas 
Jefferson, who prciclairaed as tne battle cry of the Revolution that great truth enshrined in the Declaration 
which has made his name immortal, and which scattered to the winds the sophistries and technicalities 
of the royalists (if our land, that "all governments derive their just powers from the consent of the 
governed;" not the implied consent of en forded submis-ion, but the aciual, un leniable, unquestioned 
consent of the freemen who are to b -ar its burdens and enjoy its blessings ? If a m>-ssenger had dared to 
enter the poitals of the White House when that stern old man of iron will, Andrew Jackson, of Tennesse , 
lived within it, and asked him to give his endorsement aud approval, tie sanction of his personal 
character and official influence to. a constitution reeking with fraud, which its famers were seeking to en- 
force on a jieople who protested and denounced and loathe : and repudiated it, and to go down to I istory 
as its voluntary advocate and charu])ion, that messenger, I will warrant, would have remembered the tor- 
rent of rebuke with which he would have been overwhelmed till the latest hour of his life. 

Then he makes an appeal in almost the same language that is used in the appeal to 
Congress on behalf of the people of Alabama. He says : 

She ajipeals to you to release her from the grasp of this despot and dictator, and to let her eo free. In 
the languagi' of an eloquent and gifted orator of my own Stale, I say, " When she comes to us let it be as 
a willing bride, and not as a fettered and manacled slHve." 

So I say of Alabama. 

The gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. Bingham,] too, strange to say, spoke against the 
Kansas constitution on the ground that it was not freely aud fairly adopted by the 
people who were to live under it. He, one of the committee who reports in favor of this 
bill, in favor of forcing this constitution upon the people of Alabama against their will, 
then contended manfully that the people had some riglits, and that Congress was 
bound to respect those rights. How rhetorically aud bitterly eloquent he became at 
the thought of the Federal Executive interfering with the people in the formation of 
their con.stitution ! He denounces it as usurpation — a gross outrage and wiong upon 
the people of Kansas. Let me read : 

I say such a thing is without precedent in the legislation of the country ; is unauthorized by and in 
direct"contravention of the Constitution of the United States. There is nolhiug in the Constitution of the 
United States which gives colorable authority for such legislation. There ii nothing in the pa.st legislation ot 
this countrv that gives colorable authority for it. It is a simple act of despotism attempted to be enacted 
here bv the' Congress of the United States under cover of the Constitution which bears the peerl ss name 
of Washington. It were better, sir, that that sacred instrument should perish as though smote by the 
lightning of heaven than Uiat any such act as thai now proposed should be placed upon our statute book. 



What is it ? Why, that the Confcress of the United States shall dictate to freemen that they shall accept, 
un<lfi- piiinti iind penalties, a bribe, ami thereby become subject to a constitution which they never made, 
which they abhor, and which they have condemned. 

Now comes the principle which T hold to be the true one, and which I want the 
gentleman from Ohio, when he makes his speech to-day, to answer : 

i sav, and I say it without the fear of contradiction, that the jcenius of our Constitution is this : that 
new State constitutions must emanate from the people within the limits of the proposed State, and from 
no other source. 

He said it with more eloquence and force, I have no doubt, than I could. 

Sir, what has caused these most remarkable changes in the views and opinions of 
gentlemen ? If popular sovereignty was true doctrine, if self-government was right 
in 1858, why is it not now ? If the people of Kansas were entitled under our Consti- 
tution to frame their own fundamental law, unawed by Federal bayonets and uncon- 
trolled by Federal interference, why are not the people of Alabama ? Has the result 
in Kansas convinced gentlemen of their error, answered all their arguments ? Let the 
long line of emigrants fleeing from the military despotism created in and over the 
States of the South, to seek an asylum from the oppressions of Congressional recon- 
struction in the State of Kansas, conclude the answer. The gentleman from Pennsyl- 
vania, [Mr. Stevens,] in advocating confiscation, gave utterance to this most barbarous 
and inhuman sentiment : "If it drives them into exile so much the better." I would 
that gentlemen and all those who advocate this and its kindred measures of tyranny, 
injustice, and oppression, could have beheld only last week, as described to me by an 
eye witness, the scene of sixty emigrants at the depot of the Baltimore and Ohio rail- 
road in Baltimore, "on their way to Kansas, voluntary exiles from their native homes 
in North Carolina. There were old men and young men ; there were women 'and little 
children — a poverty-stricken, sad, and sprrowfnl band — resting their emaciated and 
weary limbs upon the floor, and allaying their pangs of hunger upon crusts of bread. 
They had seen better and happier days ; they had enjoyed the luxuries of life, the 
blessings of education and refinement. But, broken-hearted and in desp^iir, they had 
left thttir sunny and once happy homes in the South, the scenes of their childhood, the 
birthplaces of their children, and the graves of tlieir ancestors, in the hope to find in 
free Kansas a place where they and their posterity may hereafter enjoy the blessings of 
liberty and freedom from the despotism which is crushing and destroying their old 
State." 

Sir, the only policy under which the States of this Union or the people can prosper is 
that which honestly administers and fully secures to all the Constitution, and prohibits 
the exercise by the Federal G-overnment of any powers not therein granted. The riglit 
of sell-government caniiot be denied or infringed upon with safety to the Commonwealth. 
The course that Congress has pursued, and is pursuing. in tlae passage of this bill, 
will not restore good government and prosperity to Alabama. The wrong and injustice 
of torcing a government upon her people against their will will not soon be forgotten. 
The memory of it will be transmitted from father to son, and will assuredly bring 
the result which a sense of oppression and injury never fail to produce. The exercise 
of a little magnanimity, generosity, forgiveness, and kindness by the conqueror would 
have settled all our diificulties long ago ; would have restored the States to the Union, 
and prosperity and happiness to the people. Witti this spirit the victorious North should 
have met its conquered CDUutrymen. Christiau charity can do more nsw than an army 
with banners. A withdrawal of the armies and restoration of the government into the 
hands of the people is all that is necessary. That would restore the happinest* and 
prosperity of former days — the happiness and prosperity which will never come of 
suVijugation, oppression, and wrong. 

Mr. Speaker, no man has been more desirous and anxious, I believe, than myself 
that the State of Alabama and the oilier excluded States should be represented in 
Congress. I believe she has been for almost three years justly entitled to have her 
Representatives on this floor and in the Senate. She has been, against all law and all 
precedents, wrongfully and unjustly excluded. But 1 cannot be a party to this bastard 
constitution, this negro government. I cannot recognize this as the State or constitu- 
tion of the State. I cannot, by any act of mine, consent to this outrage, not upon 
Alabama only, but upon the people of all the States now reprejiented in Congress. I 
cannot consent that seventy thousand negroes shall be the depositaries of the govern- 
ment of that great State ; that to them shall be committed the future destinies of half 
a million of my own race ; that they shall send seven Representatives to this House 
and two Senators to the Senate, when eight hundred thousand white citizens of my 
own State of Wisconsin can have but six Representatives and two Senators. This con- 
stitution may be good or bad ; 1 would not vote to fasten a constitution, the best the 



world ever saw, upon an unwilling people. To command my support it must be the 
voluntary choice of those who are to live under it. 

With my views I could not vote this constitution upon the people of that State if it 
had been made by the angels in hwaven, instead of having been dictated by Congress, 
and enforced by the despotic power of the army. It matters little what the constitu- 
tion of government may be ; if it be not the choice of the people, it will be considered 
and felt to be a most unjust and grinding despotism, a cruel and oppressive burden. 
The lightest oppression is too heavy (or the proud and brave long to bear. The iron 
in the soul wounds more deeply than manacles upon the limbs. There is no agony 
like that the spirit feels when crushed and bowed down by wrong and oppression. 
The burdens we take upon ourselves and bear with ease and pleasure, would, if forced 
upon jas by others, crush us to the earth. It is the free, the unfettered spirit that can 
do and brave and bear. The load the freeman carries would crush the slav«. The 
consciousness that the man is free gives him power to do and patience to endure. 

Mr. Speaker, the acts of to-day will aftVct this Republic for all time to come for good 
or for ill. Our footprints, as we are now moving along, will remain till the dust of 
ages shall cover them up, unless, as we have reason greatly to fear, the gathering 
storm of revolution, or the rising passion of a wronged and outraged people, shall wash 
them out with blood. The idea of the people of ttiat State, the white people, born in 
freedom and accttstomed to its enjoyment, submitting to a constitution formed and forced 
upon them as this is to be, is utterly absurd and preposterous. I have not so mean 
an opinion of my countrymen, my own race, the white people of Alabama, as to believe 
it. They may submit ; they will submit so long as they are in the presence of and 
awed by standing armies, and no longer. The time will assuredly come when the 
pride of race and blood will not brook the domination of inferior men ; when the white 
people of that State, conscious of the great wrong and injustfce inflicted tipon them by 
the unhallowed hand of despotic power, and conscious, too, of theij' God given strength 
and their right to be free, will rise in their might and drive the African rulers you 
shall place over them into the sea. They will regard as little the constitution enforced 
upon them by this bill as <lo those who vote for it the one they have sworn to support, 
and which this bill so wantonly and fla2;rantly violates. 

This bill and all such measures as subordinate the majority to the rule of the minority 
\ are but invitations to war and bloodshed. Eternal justice will bring just retribution. 
It may end in th« destruction of both blacks and whites, it can never end in the domi- 
nation by the former over the latter. I beg gentleman to hesitate long before they 
endeavor to bring it about. There is a point beyond which you cannot go. Hold that 
people, if you will, under the sword — punish them till the most malignant passion is 
satiated, but seek not to make them the slaves of their former servants. They can 
submit to the rule of the sword without dishonor, but to be ruled and governed by the 
negro they cannot, without utter disgrace and degradation. If you dare not trust them 
to govern themselves as communities, as a people, hold them in the iron grasp of 
military power till you dare, but do not dishonor and degrade your own countrymen 
and race ; do not overthrow our system of government in an experiment that all iiis- 
tory teaches must end in disaster and blood. • 

I can add nothing more forcible and eloquent than the remarks of the gentlf^man from 
Ohio [Mr. Bingham] against the Kansas bill, substituting only the word Alabama in 
place of Kansas : 

I repeat it; look to it, ye reprea^nlatives of the people, ye men wlio keep ward and watch over the Con- 
stitution and tlie Union, that the free mi!n of Alabama are not by your act driven to the dread election of 
submission and dishonor or resistance unto blood. I tell you, notwithstaiidini; their alleged want or raan- 
liaess, Alabama has hosts of citizens, good men and true, who will never stooj) to be your abject slaves — 
'• While Heaven has lipht or earth has graves !" 

Sanction thi? constitution, conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity, and you can only maintain 
it by tlie Federal arm and the Federal bayonet. It can never secure the voluntary sui)port of the free 
people Sanction this cor.stitution, and with it sanction, a*s it sanctions, that code of jibomniations which 
the invaders of Alabama enacted, and you cortlpel resistance. Kesistaiice to such legislation would be 
duty, not crime; patrioti.'im, not treason. The resistants or insurgents, or rebels, if you please, could 
point you, in vindication of their rebellion, to the fact that the hi.-toi-y of Federal intervention in Alabama, 
ever since the day of its organization, is but a history of repeated injuries and usurpations. 

I close with reading a single passage from anotlier speech of the gentleman from 
Ohio, [Mr. Bingham,] made on the occasion of the consideration of the constitution of 
Kansas : 

In this hour of the world's repo<;e and the world's hope, shall America, the child and the stay of the 
earth's old age, prove f-lse to her most sacred traditions, UUf to ht-r hoii.:St trust, an<l by this proposed 
enactment consent to strike down liberty in her own temple, and forge chains for her own children? 

Lft the gentleman answer that. I novf yield the remainder of my time to the 
gentleman from Kentucky, [Mr. Beck.] 



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